The Last Journey of Those Left Behind
by Queen of the Castle
Summary: It's a mad story told by a madman, but that's not why he has to see it with his own eyes to truly believe it.


Warning: Contains canon character deaths.

Author's Notes: Spoilers up to and including 'The Angels Take Manhattan'. Ignores the 'P.S.' webcast completely, so it's AU if you take that to be canon.

* * *

The overwhelming urge to travel had swelled within him the moment he'd looked down and finally _seen_ how the whole Earth was stretched out before him. He'd thought from that moment he'd be like his son and daughter-in-law, never quite able to sit still, knowing now that there were bigger and better things out there just waiting to be discovered, if only he bothered to properly look.

Brian knew now that he'd been wrong. The desire to travel had ended after all, and rather abruptly at that.

This would be his last trip abroad. And this would be the last postcard he delivered.

When the Doctor had showed up on his doorstep, even though he was alone and bearing the kind of sombre expression that Brian logically knew could only mean one thing – no matter that the Doctor had _promised_ he wouldn't let that be Rory and Amy's fate – Brian still hadn't quite wanted to actually believe it. It wasn't that he didn't trust the Doctor at his word, no matter that the man had taken away his family and failed to return them to him (for wasn't that as much Brian's fault as anyone's?). He'd just known that the bizarre account of what had happened would never seem completely _real_ to him unless he saw the proof with his own eyes, preferably as soon as possible.

So seventeen hours after he'd opened the door and seen the Doctor's face, Brian booked a flight, for he'd known what he had to do.

Two days later, he'd finally brought himself to select a photo of Rory and Amy that he could more or less bear to take a pair of scissors to, for that too had been necessary.

Now, on a paradoxically sunny afternoon a week after the fact, Brian sat on a patch of grass, surrounded by a seemingly almost endless field of marble. Ignoring his surroundings for the moment, he concentrated on carefully pasting Rory and Amy's smiling and glossy photographs, as well as one of himself (taken and printed just yesterday), underneath the picture of the looming Statue of Liberty; that had seemed a strangely appropriate choice, given everything the Doctor had told him.

When he turned the postcard over, Brian hesitated over the blank whiteness. He suddenly wondered what on Earth he was supposed to write in this situation. The inane babble he'd scrawled on that postcard he'd sent from Rio, not to mention that one story about the alpaca in Peru, didn't seem the sort of thing that would be particularly appropriate this time around.

Although actually, on second thought...

Far more than some outpouring of grief, his random stories were a true representation of who Brian _was_, so perhaps that should be the part of himself he shared with them even now. Everything else aside, he suspected Rory and Amy would appreciate that most.

Brian let his pen start moving across the cardboard, filling the page however it chose, and was surprised at how few of the words that flowed out were tinged with any kind of sadness. Mostly he recounted his last few days in New York; how this place and that had been marvellous and he bet Rory and Amy had found the time (his hand stalled momentarily over the irony of that) to visit those same things as well. He even popped in a joke about how they'd better be careful not to turn into typical New Yorkers, at least not like the ones he'd met so far, because no former Leadworthians would ever be allowed to get away with not so much as glancing at someone long enough to give him directions when he asked.

He did consider adding that he hoped their lives were full and interesting. But Brian _knew_ those two well enough to be sure they would never be content wasting away a single minute, and that they'd never settle for anything less than being happy and in love together. Frankly, that was already all any parent could really ask for, wasn't it?

In the end, Brian didn't put the word 'goodbye' to paper, either, even though that was what this trip was technically all about. Instead, he signed off with an "I'll see you soon."

He waved the postcard back and forth for a moment to help dry the ink and went to put it down before he realised something he'd forgotten, which had always been a personal tradition in the homemade postcards he'd sent his son and daughter-in-law. He pulled out a small white cut-out box and three arrows, and then glued them all down in such a way that the box pointed downward at each of the three of them.

_We are here_, the pictures of Brian, Rory and Amy now proclaimed against the backdrop of New York.

And they were. All three of them, together, right now, even if this wasn't the way Brian would have preferred it.

Brian leaned down and propped the now-completed postcard against the grave marker, then let his empty fingers drift to the two names carved into the stone.

They were still out there living their lives somewhere in New York, Brian reminded himself, even if they were doing it a few decades earlier than they rightly should have. Knowing that, it didn't seem to matter so much that they would never get the opportunity to actually read the postcard he was leaving them here and now. It still helped him feel connected to them all the same, to know that he was standing where they'd stood, and where they now rested, and was leaving something of himself behind here too.

There would be no proper funeral, as Rory and Amy so clearly deserved. How could there be, when none of their other friends and family could be told the truth of what had happened? But at least Brian had this moment to remember the two of them, and this hard proof that they'd shared long lives together, as he'd always hoped they would.

It would just have to be enough.


End file.
